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They've Got Particularly Nice Pies
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Rochdale is always interesting...ish.
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By:
Eric Hitchmo
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08/10/2009
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More On Rochdale
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Rochdale is not my fondest of trips I've got to be honest. Saturday will be the tenth time I have been there and only the sixth game I have seen, owing to the multitude of postponements that have occurred in the approach to Spotland in recent years. Well what a nightmare those were! All these Tuesday nights spent in Rochdale, horrible really.
Add to that the fact that we don't really get much change out of them because they tend to be quite good at home. I've seen us win there once, having played them off the park. Most of the other times however, Rochdale have been really quite good and battered us, even when we didn't play that badly.
The worst one has to be the FA Cup replay last season. Probably the last thing you need, of all the possibilities. I remember standing on the East Terrace in the original tie praying for anything but a draw. At the time I really would rather have lost it, just to avoid going to Dale midweek, AGAIN! Such is life. It turned out to be quite an eventful and funny trip, but on the face of it, we threw away a two goal lead after extra time and came home from there miserable. If memory serves me correctly, even in the early hours, we hit traffic and didn't arrive home until gone 0200. Nice.
Their fans have always been pleasant enough though. Amongst the echoey shouts of 'DALE! DALE!' that appear every so often, they proved themselves quite generous a few years back after we finally managed to get a game played. Two of us sat in their social club beforehand whilst sympathetic directors and fans purchased us drinks. As the other one was driving, the responsibilty was down to me to knock back the money that had been kindly left for us. So thanks to the Rochdale supporters in the bar for getting me nicely hammered in a short space of time!
That night also gave me the opportunity to line my stomach with the fantastic local pies. I polished off three before they shut up shop at the beginning of the second half, and fo r those of you who know who I am, that is some feat. Those little pastry based delights, filled with the finest Meat and Potato mixture, heavenly. It almost makes the many trips worth it. Well, it doesn't, but it sounded nice.
We were well beaten on Tuesday by Charlton, but the scoreline flattered them on the face of it and the first two goals were pretty fortunate. It was clear though that Ian Hendon knew exactly where his priorities were, by resting key players and bringing those that did play off way short of the ninety minutes. Saturday is the more important game, though it's a shame that barely a fraction of the fine 562 turnout at The Valley will be present at Spotland to see it. Irrespective of distance, I find it a little silly that barely 100 of those supporters will make it to a 7th v. 4th clash. How well do we have to be playing to get those supporters back on the road?
Still, those rested players will return. Breen will slot back into defence, Furlong will return to his massive beastliness up front and Adomah will hopefully terrorise their left back. We've two solid league wins to build on. Forget Tuesday, it's a nothingness in the grand scheme of things.
So I'll be there on Saturday, fighting for space in the 3,500 capacity away stand. Maybe when we get promoted I can take the moral high ground and say 'I was there, Rochdale away'. We can dream...
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